Chapter 441: "Reform Old Fart"
Kian's consciousness had already started to blur, on the verge of slipping free of this absurd little puppet.
In front of him, the Gretchin who'd absorbed all that WAAAGH energy was growing stronger by the second.
After a burst of cracking bone and tearing muscle, the little Gretchin, barely 1.2 meters tall a moment ago, had shot up into a full-sized 1.6-meter Gretchin giant!
The Gretchin nearby, watching one of their own get blessed by Grot Marjack and transformed, so tall, so massive, so utterly WAAAGH, let out a chorus of gasps, staring at him with pure envy!
Every last one of them desperately wanted that same blessing, wanted to be made huge and WAAAGH themselves.
They dropped back into a frenzy of kneeling and chanting, begging for Kian to bless them too.
But by now Kian had all but drained the last of the WAAAGH energy from his system, and he was starting to feel utterly worn out.
He fed the crowd another comforting lie:
"Once Great Gretchin-ism is achieved, every single one of you will have a body this powerful, this WAAAGH!"
At that point, the lucky Gretchin who'd been pumped full of all that WAAAGH energy asked a question:
"Grot Marjack, what's your relationship with Gork and Mork?"
The question caught Kian completely off guard.
Gork and Mork were the Ork gods, legendarily two colossal greenskins the size of entire planets, locked in an eternal brawl somewhere out in the Warp. Every greenskin in existence worshipped Gork and Mork.
When a greenskin died, their soul would fly off to Gork and Mork, who would then scatter those souls back out across the universe, letting them crawl forth from the mushroom fields once more and complete the cycle of reincarnation.
Gork and Mork were the supreme gods of all greenskin-kind, but now this bizarre new figure, Grot Marjack, had shown up out of nowhere, and it had gotten the Gretchin curious.
Nowhere in their bloodline-deep instinctive knowledge of the divine did a "Grot Marjack" seem to exist. So where did that leave things?
Kian saw the curiosity building in their eyes and knew he needed to talk his way out of this fast, or risk the whole crowd turning skeptical.
He cleared his throat and, in his most cunning tone, spun another tale:
"As everyone knows, our greenskin gods Gork and Mork spend all their time brawling out in the Warp.
When any of you die in battle and your soul heads off to be reborn, it passes through the Warp and sees Gork and Mork there.
The two of them are so massive, and they fight so relentlessly, that every greenskin soul's attention gets fixed entirely on them. That's exactly why none of you ever noticed me.
I am the guardian spirit of the Gretchin specifically. That's why I'm small.
But don't let my size fool you. I am cunning and deceitful, deceitful and cunning!
Whenever Gork and Mork start brawling, I fly my little wings right up close and whisper ideas into their ears!
To Gork, I say: I'm on your side, so later, sneak up behind Mork and crack him over the head with a folding chair!
To Mork, I say: I'm NOT on his side, so later, when Gork tries to jump you from behind, kick him hard right in the crotch!
That's right. The reason Gork and Mork never stop fighting each other is because I've been stirring up trouble between them this whole time!"
The moment those words landed, the Gretchin crowd let out a collective gasp of awe.
"Truly worthy of Grot Marjack, so cunning and deceitful, deceitful and cunning, he's been secretly egging Gork and Mork into fighting each other this whole time!"
They erupted into excited chatter, their worship of Grot Marjack more fervent than ever.
The last of the WAAAGH energy inside Kian was almost completely drained now, and he could feel himself about to black out.
But before that happened, something occurred to him, and he asked:
"Oh, right. I heard that Old Fart Kian took down Blackiron. What's his situation now?"
The moment the Gretchin heard Grot Marjack ask, they all started chattering excitedly, eager to answer:
"Boss Blackiron's in real bad shape, he's basically just a little lump left!
But he ain't dead. Mad Doc saved 'im.
Three-Arm says he's gonna build a really, really big walker and stuff Boss Blackiron inside as the pilot!"
Kian asked, "Who's Three-Arm?"
"Three-Arm is da meanest, greediest Big Mek there is! He can build da biggest tanks, da biggest walkers, and da biggest BOOMS!
He told us to go find him parts, said if we find enough parts, he'll build us killa-cans!
But so far, not one single Gretchin has actually gotten a killa-can from him!"
That jogged Kian's memory. Right before he'd blacked out on the battlefield, he'd caught a glimpse of an unusual Ork.
That Ork had a particularly thick, oversized mechanical arm mounted on his back. That must have been the Big Mek, Three-Arm.
"Do any of you know where Three-Arm's war-workshop is? Do you know how big a walker he's building? Do you know—"
Before Kian could finish the question, the last of the WAAAGH energy inside him ran completely dry, and his consciousness slipped free of the junk puppet.
The rice cooker serving as the puppet's head clattered loose and rolled off across the ground with a hollow rattle.
Seeing the puppet go still and silent, the Gretchin understood: Grot Marjack had departed.
They exchanged looks with each other for a moment, then, as one, turned their gaze to the lucky Gretchin who had received Grot Marjack's blessing.
He stood tall and powerfully built, arms thick with muscle, his stride steady and sure, a body like a solid wall, bearing carried with real presence, features sharp and commanding, shoulders as broad as a double-door refrigerator.
The assembled Gretchin dropped to their knees before him at once, chanting in unison:
"REFORM OLD FART! REFORM OLD FART! REFORM OLD FART! REFORM OLD FART!"
And from that moment on, history took an irreversible turn!
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